metro >> on the cover Israel Advocacy Local Jewish high schools have different approaches, different goals. Louis Finkelman I Special to the Jewish News CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 Some Jewish educators offer Israel advo- cacy courses. They teach their students the hard facts and strong arguments the student needs to resist the arguments of glib anti- Zionists. These educators say our students need to know how to win debates for Israel. Other educators offer the Israel experi- ence. They offer students rich, complex and positive experiences of Israel. According to these educators, preparing for futile argu- ments with the glib anti-Zionists misses the point. We need to have Jews who connect with Israel. Still other educators design their courses to help students find accurate information about the history of Israel, both beautiful and ugly incidents. They say that indoctri- nation does not work, and we should not try to make it work. Self-respecting history teachers have an intellectual responsibility to present evidence as accurately as possible. According to these educators, we have to trust students. In this three-way dispute, a major Israel advocacy and education organization has reversed its strategy for its high school programs. The Boston-based David Project, founded in 2002 in response to anti-Israel activity on campuses around the country, until last year concentrated its high school work on getting students ready to win the debate on campus. This year, the David Project has unveiled a complete overhaul of its approach. Its new mission, as described by Executive Director David Bernstein, focuses on creating "a more thoughtful, nuanced and supportive environment ... for Israel and its support- ers:' Stephanie Hoffman, a former Detroiter, man- ager of David Project Pre-Collegiate Programs, sums up the softer approach, used at more than 130 Jewish high schools: "Israel education Stephanie is strongest with a combi- Hoffman nation of personal experi- ence, collective memory and historical context:' Students, she says, should learn to articulate "their own per- sonal connection with Israel:' Each person will have different reasons for a connection to Israel. Hoffman says the David Project made the change because the old curriculum was "not working as well as we wanted. You do not 10 March 7 • 2013 that Israelis broadcast a warning to alert civilians] so that they can properly educate the general public about the event. The key to proper advocacy is being able to disprove the negative propaganda and answer with a positive aspect about Israel" Memory Vs. History StandWithUs student interns Joey Jubas of Akiva, and Jesse Arm and Andrew Moss, both of Frankel Jewish Academy, at last year's annual dinner tell today's teens why they should support Israel or do anything else; you teach them the differing reasons why different people have supported Israel. We can trace commit- ments to Israel throughout Jewish history:' As Todd Young, director of Campus & Educational Initiatives at the David Project, points out, any substantial change will have opponents who prefer the old way of doing things. Indeed, one Michigan educator laments the change at the David Project and prefers the approach of a rival organization, Los Angeles-based StandWithUs (SWU). Roz Rothstein, CEO of that organiza- tion, explains that when anti-Israel groups actively demand that universities divest from Israel, as they have at University of California-Irvine, then pro-Israel groups have to fight back politically. She politely dismisses the "Israel experience" approach: "You have the luxury of doing education on Israel technology and humanitarian aid" only when anti-Israel groups are quiet, she told the Forward. SWU recommends that high school teachers draw their curricula from the pamphlet, "Israel 101" (available at StandWithUs.org). This pamphlet ends with "Hot Topics:' instructions for how to refute the hottest accusations against Israel. In the words of Barbara Moretsky, president of StandWithUs-Michigan, the pamphlet "does not take a bloodless approach:' She says we have to know how to defeat accusations because otherwise the debate will be shaped by years of lies being told over and over, which results in people accepting them as truth. "Now, even a segment of our Jewish popu- lation believes the myths and outright lies:' she said. "This area of study is most needed by high school students before they go to college, where they are just as likely to hear the lies from their professors as from the Students for Justice in Palestine chapters at campus rallies:' StandWithUs has student interns at high schools throughout the country, including Akiva and Frankel. At a weekend training session in Los Angeles, 48 of these interns (called MZ interns in honor of the initials of the donor) studied how to combat propa- ganda. Joey Jubas, an intern at Akiva with Elana Greenbaum, described one technique for answering politely and effectively. "Propaganda seeks to demoralize, demonize and apply double standards. You do not have to anticipate every single point to recognize those techniques and to answer accordingly. If they apply double standards, you can point out the inconsistency" Jubas says teens can help SWU because "we are so adept at social media. We can speed the facts and the truth out on Facebook and Twitter, and let people know how great Israel is and the great things it has accomplished. And StandWithUs provides resources to us whenever we need them:' Andrew Moss, an FJA student intern along with Jesse Arm, makes a similar point. "Students need to learn what the anti- Israel activists say and what they can say in response," he said. "For example, anti-Israel advocates will commonly bring up the Deir Yassin Massacre [in April 1948] as a focal point of Israeli atrocity. Students should know the Israeli side to the story [namely Israel advocates react to challenging inci- dents in Israel's past by defending Israel against charges, but how should a his- tory class deal with these incidents? Rabbi Tzvi Klugerman, head of Akiva, studied history in graduate school at the University of Maryland. Among his professors was Benny Morris, whose analysis of the Israeli Rabbi Tzvi War of Independence Klugerman systematically uncovered disturbing incidents. In the History of Zionism course that he teaches, Klugerman wants his students to develop a sophisticated understanding of Israel. He talks about the distinction, articulated by former Columbia University educator Yosef Hayyim Yerushalmi, between "memory" and "history:' History tries to ascertain what we can know about what happened. Memory tries to use what happened to form our identity. In Yerushalmi's example, the Passover seder is a ritualized memory, which we use to form a community; history asks what the primary sources reveal about the Exodus. In learning about Israel, Klugerman says, the story of valiant pioneers, who settled a swampland and rocky desert, and eventually survived to found a state against all odds, amounts to "memory:' When you do "history:' you compare leg- end with the facts, including awkward facts. Klugerman believes that part of the antidote to pure ritual memory lies in historiography, the study "not of the primary sources, but of how the historians use the primary sources" to craft their competing versions of history, including a variety of Jewish and non-Jewish responses to Zionism. However, Klugerman notes that Akiva was founded nearly 50 years ago to provide an intensely Zionist and more Israel-centered experience than its older counterpart, Yeshiva Beth Yehudah in Oak Park. Families that send their children to Akiva already have bought into Zionism, and students come to the school with commitment to Israel.